Japan Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant blog
Tracking Fukushima news from day 1 : | Now one of the world's largest Public Available Repositories of the Chronology of the Daiichi Nuclear ongoing Disaster.
This entire site and content is 100% copyright (for commercial replication), please use the form to submit application for re-use. This site is 100% Educational and all licences in relation to reporting are attended to.

Thursday, 31 July 2014

More than three years after the triple core meltdown in Fukushima
Prefecture devastated the lives of thousands of residents, the effect
that the radiation release is having on children’s thyroid glands still
weighs heavily on residents’ minds.

The iodine-131 released into the air by the meltdowns accumulates in
the thyroid gland, increasing the risk of thyroid cancer. The gland is
responsible for regulating hormone levels in the body.

Children are considered especially vulnerable. After the 1986
Chernobyl disaster, more than 6,000 children were diagnosed with thyroid
cancer by 2005, according to the U.N. Scientific Committee of the
Effects of Atomic Radiation.

Given the local anxiety, the Fukushima Prefectural Government in
October 2011 started offering free thyroid screenings for everyone who
was 18 or younger at the time of the disaster. The prefecture has
370,000 residents in that age group, and 300,000 had received voluntary
checkups by the end of March.

The program may look good on paper, but it has drawn flak from
medical experts who say it is far from adequate in determining a link
between the cancers found and radiation exposure.

At the core of the criticism is the prefectural government’s policy
of not releasing data on the results of the checkups, such as what stage
of cancer the examinees are in.

This lack of disclosure — based on prefectural privacy policies — has
made it hard for experts to accurately judge whether the abnormally
high incidence of thyroid cancer in Fukushima is being caused the
nuclear debacle or the higher screening rate.

In addition, the prefecture has no authority to follow up on children
who test positive for cancer, meaning its data on the medical effects
of the aftermath of the disaster will be limited.

As of March, the prefectural government found 90 children with
suspected thyroid cancer after nearly 300,000 examinations. The
prefecture was able to confirm that 51 of them opted to have surgery to
remove part or all of their thyroid gland.

This figure is clearly high compared with a thyroid cancer registry
rate of around one to nine per 1 million teens in Japan, experts say.

But because thyroid cancer often causes no symptoms and thus goes
undiagnosed, experts point to the possibility that the ratio in
Fukushima has turned out to be higher simply due to the widespread
screening.

“The screenings may have ended up finding cancer that would have
never have caused a health problem for their entire lives even if left
unattended,” said Kenji Shibuya, a professor and chairman of the
department of global health policy at the University of Tokyo.

The thyroid cancer rate among children near the Chernobyl plant
started to rise four to five years after the catastrophe, mainly because
they kept drinking highly contaminated milk and local produce,
according to UNSCEAR.

But in Fukushima, several studies have confirmed that internal and
external exposure levels were indeed much lower than those around the
former Soviet power plant, which met a much more violent fate.

In April, UNSCEAR said that in Fukushima “the occurrence of a large
number of radiation-induced thyroid cancers as were observed after
Chernobyl can be discounted because doses were substantially lower.”

“Given the low radiation exposure levels, it is possible that
detected cancers were the kind of cancers that would never do harm. But
they were found because of the screenings,” said Shibuya, a member of a
panel tasked with assessing the result of the thyroid examinations in
Fukushima.
He added that there is also a possibility that patients underwent unnecessary surgery.

To examine the possibility of overdiagnosis— diagnosis of a malady
that never causes symptoms or death — Shibuya and other medical experts
have urged Fukushima Medical University, which is heading up the
examination program, to disclose its findings on treated patients, such
as the percentage of thyroid cancer cases that spread to the lymph nodes
or elsewhere in the body.
The university refuses to disclose the data for privacy reasons.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government meanwhile says it doesn’t have
the authority to track down and gather the information from medical
institutions because treatment after diagnosis is outside its
jurisdiction.

Fukushima official Yukio Kakuta acknowledged that the prefecture can’t track down all patients.
“Under the current system, we can’t follow up on all of the
patients,” Kakuta said. “In addition to the issue of privacy, it’s my
understanding that some patients and their parents are skeptical of the
prefecture-led health checkup program itself, and that some people don’t
trust Fukushima Medical University.

“I believe some of those people have gone to other hospitals to get
their thyroid glands checked and treated,” which makes it difficult for
the prefecture to find out what happens to them over the long term, he
said.

Kakuta said the information disclosure issue will be discussed at the
next meeting of a local committee in late August but will stay in place
for now.

Shibuya of the University of Tokyo pointed out that the disclosure of
information on the stages of the cancers does not violate patient
privacy.
“They only have to disclose information on percentages of various
cancer stages, such as the cases when the lymph nodes are infiltrated
with malignant cells,” he said.
“If all of the treated cancers were such cases, then we would know
(what’s happening in Fukushima) is not normal, and start discussions on
the potential effects of the radiation,” he said. “But without
disclosing the data, the suspicion (of overdiagnosis) will never go
away.”

With the spreading use of sonography, overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer
has become a concern worldwide. While the number of cases is on the
rise, experts say the mortality rate remains unchanged.

Papillary thyroid cancer, the type that appears most prevalent among
children in Fukushima, is known for having a slow growth rate and very
low risk of death, the experts say. Therefore, many hospitals in Japan
nowadays tell patients that long-term observation of their condition is
an option to surgery.

Iwao Sugitani, a professor and chairman of the department of
endocrine surgery at Nippon Medical School Graduate School of Medicine,
said about 90 percent of thyroid cancer cases in Japan involve papillary
thyroid cancer. While around nine out of every 10 patients with this
type of cancer face no immediate threat to their lives, experts are
divided on whether to perform surgery in such cases.

According to a study conducted by the Cancer Institute Hospital in
Tokyo from 1995 to 2009, a total of 283 papillary thyroid cancer
patients chose not to have surgery and opted instead to be monitored on a
regular basis. None died nor saw the cancer spread, according to the
study.

“Early detection and early treatment is recommendable for most
cancers. But I don’t see much meaning in finding and conducting surgery
on people with a small papillary thyroid cancer that would go undetected
for their entire lifetimes” without screening, Sugitani said.

Shibuya of the University of Tokyo also questions whether the mostly
benign nature of papillary thyroid cancer and the option of having no
surgery are being fully explained to the children and their parents in
Fukushima.
“Without such knowledge, it’s natural for most parents to ask doctors to perform surgery,” Shibuya said.

By going under the knife, “children will have scars on their necks,
and they may suffer from the thought that they developed cancer due to
radiation exposure,” he said. “Some of them might have to take hormone
tablets during their entire lives. (The Fukushima government) must think
harder on whether it should continue the program as it is now.”

Japan has been asked to approve reprocessing of spent
nuclear fuel in India as part of negotiations to conclude a nuclear
power agreement between the two nations.

But though the Abe administration is eager to export nuclear power
generation infrastructure as a pillar of its economic growth
strategy, some Japanese government officials are cautious about
approving the request from India.

The reprocessing produces plutonium that can be used as raw
materials for nuclear weapons, which India already possesses.

According to officials of both the Japanese and Indian
governments, India’s request is in line with the nuclear power
agreement it reached with the United States.

Under certain conditions, the U.S.-India agreement allows India to
reprocess within its borders spent nuclear fuel that was produced at
nuclear power plants constructed with infrastructure exported from
the United States.

The conditions state that the reprocessing must be conducted at
newly constructed reprocessing facilities, which undergo inspections
by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

India conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. As it is not a
member country of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the
international community had long prohibited member countries of the
treaty from concluding nuclear power agreements with India for
civilian purposes, including exports of nuclear power generation
infrastructure.

However, in recent years those countries began to regard India,
where electricity demand is growing rapidly, as a promising market
for exports of nuclear power generation infrastructure.

As a result, the United States concluded a nuclear power agreement
with India in 2007. The next year, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG),
which consists of 48 countries, including Japan and the United
States, gave the green light to member countries to draw up nuclear
power agreements with India by citing it as an exceptional country.

France and Russia are among countries that have since reached
nuclear power agreements with India.
India, which plans to use plutonium in fast-breeder reactors that
are under development, claims that reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel
in the country is indispensable for nuclear power policies for
peaceful purposes.

India wants to quickly reach a nuclear power agreement with Japan,
which has key technologies on nuclear reactors. Though India is also
considering taking on nuclear power plant construction projects with
both the United States and France, there is a strong likelihood that
it will use Japan-made products for pressure vessels and other key
parts of those plants. Unless India concludes a nuclear power
agreement with Japan, those projects will not make any progress.

As India plans to construct about 30 nuclear reactors, it will
become a promising client for Japan. Some officials in the Japanese
government say that Japan should conclude a nuclear power agreement
with India as soon as possible.

However, Japan has not approved reprocessing of spent nuclear
fuels or enrichment of uranium in nuclear power agreements it has
reached with other countries. That is because plutonium, which is
produced by the reprocessing, and enriched uranium can be converted
for military use.

If Japan allows India to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, the
approval would contradict the Japanese government’s efforts to
prevent plutonium or enriched uranium from being converted for
military use.

Some officials of the Japanese government are keen to avoid
stoking more anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan, which has grown
stronger since the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear
power plant.

In 2010, the Japanese government started negotiations with India
to draw up a nuclear power agreement. The talks were suspended after
the Great East Japan Earthquake, but resumed in September 2013.

The nuclear power agreement is expected to be a topic of
discussion in a summit meeting between Japan and India when the new
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Japan in late August or
later.

Airborne radioactive materials released during
debris-clearing work at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were
found in a town 60 kilometers away on seven occasions since December
2011.

Led by Teruyuki Nakajima, a professor of atmospheric physics at
the University of Tokyo’s Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute,
the team noted a surge in concentration of airborne radioactive
cesium during clean-up activities that reached the town of Marumori
in neighboring Miyagi Prefecture.

The researchers said the findings show that radioactive materials
were repeatedly released into the environment and reached extensive
areas during debris-clearing operations.

They called on Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the
Fukushima plant, to take more care to prevent the spread of
radioactive materials during debris-clearing operations, even if it
requires implementing more costly methods.

In conducting its research, the team placed a device to collect
airborne dust at the town office of Marumori, 59 kilometers
north-northwest of the stricken Fukushima plant. The device collected
the samples at four- or five-day intervals between December 2011 and
December 2013.

The team determined that there were eight cases in which the
amount of radioactive cesium in the samples were at least 10 times
higher than normal levels and the material likely originated from the
Fukushima plant because of wind direction and speed.

The highest level of contamination was recorded in a sample
collected between Aug. 16-20, 2013, reaching 50 to 100 times higher
than normal levels.

TEPCO conducted large-scale debris-clearing work at the plant on
Aug. 19, 2013. Previous research by the farm ministry and Kyoto
University also showed that radioactive dust released during the work
reached locations 27 km and 48 km from the plant.

In seven other cases, the amount of radioactive materials in the
samples was about 10 times higher than normal. The research team
reported the results of its findings to the farm ministry in May.

According to TEPCO, seven of the eight cases were recorded during
the same period when the utility was doing debris-clearing work at
the No. 3 reactor building.

The remaining case involved samples collected between Nov. 16-20,
2012, coinciding with an accidental water leak from a vent pipe of a
cesium-absorption device at the plant.

A TEPCO official said it was unlikely that the accident caused a
major release of radioactive materials like the August 2013 incident.

The utility had planned to dismantle a shroud over the No. 1
reactor building this month to start full-scale debris-clearing work
around the reactor, but postponed the plan in order to strengthen
measures to prevent the spread of radioactive materials during
clean-up activities.

A worker at the Fukushima plant said that TEPCO has not discussed
any drastic measures, such as covering the reactor with a container.

Western desert-living Martu Elder, Thelma Rawlins said that many of
her people remain opposed to the “go-aheads” given to uranium mining on
Martu Country.
“Kintyre should be left alone, our Country left alone.”
“This is really bad stuff in the ground, and it will be really bad
stuff if it comes above the ground. We are getting too close to bad
stuff happening,” said Ms Rawlins.
“Country will be made bad, our water made bad. Our water is salty,
the river bed is salty. We have to be careful with our water. The
uranium out of ground will take our water away.”
“Leave the uranium in the ground. It is bad stuff that they want our people to be next to, this is not good.”
But Western Australia’s controversial Environmental Protection
Authority (EPA) has given the thumbs up for the CAMECO company proposal
to mine uranium on Martu Country, at Kintyre which is next to the
significant waterways of Kalmilyi National Park in the Pilbara. The EPA
has been the subject of one controversy after another and most recently
with the now defunct James Price Gas Hub proposal in the Kimberley where
it had also have given the thumbs up despite widespread public
opposition.
Two prospective uranium mine sites in Western Australia are nearing
the likelihood of becoming operational in the next couple of years, both
near Aboriginal communities – the other uranium site is near Wiluna and
Toro Energy may have it operational by the end of next year. By the end
of the century Western Australia will be transformed into one of the
world’s largest uranium miners according to insiders in the industry.
Western Australia is rich in easily accessible high grade uranium. The
miners are chomping at the bit, investing in uranium mining research
divisions within their multinational companies. It is no secret that the
State and Federal Governments are supportive of mining uranium despite
the litany of well-known risks.
The Conservation Council of WA has slammed the EPA approval.
“The proposal to mine uranium five hundred metres from a creek system
that is part of a network of significant waterways in a national park
is reckless and should not be approved,” said CCWA spokesperson, Mia
Pepper.
Ms Pepper said the approval disturbingly followed the recent
allegations by Martu man, Darren Farmer “that a former mine owner Rio
Tinto made secret payments of around $21 million to silence Aboriginal
concerns and opposition while it negotiated the project’s sale to
current owner CAMECO.”
Former Western Desert Puntukurnuparna Aboriginal Corporation CEO,
Bruce Hill has joined the chorus for independent inquiries into how
decisions and dealings are made in native title dealings in the Western
Desert. A few years ago, Mr Hill blew the whistle on a litany of alleged
rorting and what most would have considered illegal activities within
his organisation to the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous
Corporations and to the Australian Senate but eventually the inquiries
petered to a standstill.
Ms Pepper said the EPA approval puts at risk human life and also “our
largest national park – and would impact on scarce water resources and a
number of significant and vulnerable species including the bilby,
marsupial mole and rock wallaby.”
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Dave Sweeney said that
uranium mining is “a high risk, low return activity where proven risks
far outweigh any promised rewards.”
“Uranium is currently trading at US$28 per lb. CAMECO has stated it
will not mine unless the uranium prices reach upwards of $US75 per lb.
The EPA is green lighting yellowcake when the company has stated the
finances and the plan don’t stack up.”
But mining company insiders say Mr Sweeney’s arguments are naïve and
that uranium prices will spiral upwards, and that for the mining
companies it is all “about the expected return, which will be tenfold
and then many times more before too many more sleeps.”
There are more than 70 nuclear reactors under construction around the
world with more than 300 in the planning stages. There will be a couple
thousand more by the end of the century.
Toro Energy managing director, Vanessa Guthrie said that there will
be a swell of demand for uranium and that “the price will change – it is
just a question of when.”
In wiser statements, Mr Sweeney said that the Western Australian
Government has put unparalleled contamination risks for Australia
“before the people.” The EPA is supposed to be the environmental
watchdog but according to Ms Rawlins, Ms Pepper and Mr Sweeney the EPA
is not a genuine environmental watchdog.
According to the EPA, CAMECO’s uranium mine plan at Kintyre has gone through rigid environmental impact assessments.
Just like the proposed Wiluna mine, with Toro Energy to truck uranium
oxide to Port Adelaide, similarly so CAMECO expects to truck uranium
oxide concentrate to Port Adelaide. The EPA will monitor radiological
impacts to plants and animals along the route.
Ms Pepper said that it is “really disappointing to see that most of
the conditions by the EPA are administrative and that the ones that do
relate to environmental protection are somewhat deferred to the
Department of Mines and Petroleum.”
“We will absolutely be putting in a submission and we will be supporting efforts by other people to put in appeals.”
“There is too much at stake with this project and we will challenge this mine at every step of the way.”
“Like the Wiluna project (which has also received EPA approval), the Kintyre project still has a long way to go.”
CAMECO Australia managing director, Brian Reilly said uranium will be
mined once the market conditions signal for this. CAMECO produces about
15 per cent of the world’s usable uranium from mines in the United
States, Canada and Kazakhstan.
Western Australian Mines Minister, Bill Marmion, who has the final
say on the uranium approvals, said that the public opposition to uranium
mining has decreased.
Minister Marmion said protesting about uranium mining has “dropped off” the list for activists.
“Three years ago when I was the Minister for the Environment, I think
I had ten protestors on uranium outside my office on a Saturday, and I
think the same ten were at Wiluna.”
“So I think they are just a rent-a-crowd, and I think they’ve run out of money, those ten people.”
Minister Marmion pointed to the State’s agenda saying that since the
State ban on uranium had been lifted in 2008, more than $280 million had
been spent on exploration.
Despite Minister Marmion’s claims of a small rent-a-crowd, many Martu
have said to me that they oppose the uranium mining. Many Wiluna
residents, including senior Elder Geoff Cooke also oppose the proposed
uranium mining.
“We are the Custodians of the Land. It must come before all else,” said Mr Cooke.
“Uranium is a poison. Our rivers will be poisoned. Our trees will be
poisoned. Our food will be contaminated. Our people will become sick.”
“Uranium mining can hurt us forever, hurt every generation of our children to come.”
Once Toro Energy’s project is operational, there will be two open-cut
mines nearby Wiluna at Centipede and Lake Way, producing an estimate of
800 tonnes of uranium oxide a year – for at least 14 years.
The EPA confirmed that the Kintyre will have at least a mine life of 13.5 years.
A few years ago, I wrote about the extensiveness of uranium mining
plans that one anti-uranium mining activist criticised at the time as
not possible. She believed that the war against uranium mining in
Western Australia had been won.
A well-placed insider in a major mining multinational had said, “For a
long time the writing has been on the wall. Uranium mining will occur
and it will be widespread. The nuclear age will come to Western
Australia. The WA of 2030 will be different to the one of 2013.”
The insider said there will be a proliferation of uranium mine sites in Western Australia and nuclear reactors.
“People may get sick at uranium mines and in transporting uranium and
in other future plants and sites that will depend on that uranium but
that’s par for the course. No-one will be forced to work in them. People
do know the risks. Governments know the risks. The resource sector
knows the risks but I am telling you this is what will happen and it has
been in the advanced planning stages for quite some time.”
Once the Kintyre and Wiluna mines are operational, every month three
trucks will carry concentrated powdered ore sealed in drums and with a
United Nations inventory numbers. The trucks will rumble thousands of
kilometres to Port Adelaide.
Ms Guthrie has been reported in saying, “It is very safe.”
“The plastic-lined drums are sealed and locked in pallets and we
monitor the (radiation) exposure to the drivers who would be closest to
the product.”
Ms Guthrie said the occupational limit in reference to radiation
exposure is 20 millisieverts and she said driver’s exposure “would be
less than one millisievert a year.”
But First Nations anti-uranium campaigner, Kado Muir said that
“uranium is radioactive and poses great risks to workers, communities
and the environment.”
“Uranium oxide can be very dangerous if inhaled.”
“Breaking it down to radon gas is dangerous.”
“The biggest problem is that its impacts are long-term whether from
leaks or mine waste. It can get into groundwater and into the food
chain. Then what will we do?”
“Every uranium mine so far in Australia has a history of spills and leaks.”
“For our people nearby uranium mines, such as on Arabunna Country, or
at Jabiluka in Kakadu, if radiation fallout impacts the environment
then animals and food chains will be affected and so too our towns.”
“Uranium is the asbestos of the 21st century.”

Rejecting a decision by prosecutors, an independent
judicial panel of citizens said July 31 that three former executives
of Tokyo Electric Power Co. should be indicted over the 2011
Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution said
charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury are
warranted against former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two
former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office had decided not to
indict 42 people, including the three former TEPCO executives.
In response to the inquest committee’s decision, however, the
prosecutors office will reinvestigate the case to decide whether to
indict the three.
If prosecutors again decide not to indict them but the inquest
committee maintains its stance that they should be held criminally
responsible for the disaster, the three will be indicted mandatorily
and stand trial.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami led to the
triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011,
residents affected by the accident and citizens groups filed
complaints with prosecutors against the 42 people. Those named in the
complaints included not only the former TEPCO executives, but also
former high-ranking government officials, including Naoto Kan, who
was prime minister at the time of the disaster.
The groups said some inpatients died on their way to evacuation
centers from hospitals while others were exposed to radiation from
the nuclear power plant.
The prosecutors office accepted the complaints in August 2012. But
after the investigations wrapped up, they decided in September 2013
not to indict any of the 42 people.
Prosecutors said the size and scale of the magnitude-9.0
earthquake and tsunami could not have been predicted by experts. They
also said evidence of negligence among the 42 people was
insufficient.
But a group of people, including those affected by the nuclear
accident, asked the prosecution inquest committee in October 2013 to
examine the evidence against six former TEPCO executives, including
Katsumata, Muto and Takekuro.
In the July 31 announcement of its decision, the inquest panel
pointed out that before the nuclear accident, TEPCO estimated that a
tsunami as high as “15.7 meters” could hit the Fukushima plant,
based on a government organization’s forecast.
The actual tsunami was 15.5 meters at the highest point and
inundated the reactor buildings that were located 10 meters above sea
level.
“Assuming the arrival of such a tsunami, TEPCO should have taken
countermeasures, although it is impossible to predict when it would
arrive because a tsunami is a natural phenomenon,” the panel said.

Jul. 30, 2014There is more controversy over dealing with the aftermath of the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

NHK has learned the government notified
the prefecture of a plan to provide a subsidy of more than 2.2 billion
dollars, over 30 years for regional development. The
pledge is connected with the construction of temporary storage
facilities for highly radioactive waste.

Sources say the central government last week conveyed its idea to the Fukushima prefectural government and others.

The central government had been discussing with local municipalities
a plan to purchase the land needed to build temporary storage
facilities for radioactive debris.

The arrangement calls for the facilities to be built in the towns of Futaba and Okuma, which host the Daiichi plant.

Sources also say the government at the
same time indicated that it would stop paying subsidies for the
Fukushima Daini nuclear plant. Local people are calling for it to
be decommissioned. The Daini plant, located 10 kilometers south of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi, has been offline since the 2011 disaster.

The government's new plan would reduce the annual subsidies total for Fukushima by nearly 40 million dollars.

The Fukushima prefectural government has reacted sharply. Local
officials are complaining of the new burden of the temporary storage
facilities.

While Mangano et al. created arbitrary classifications of
hypothyroidism, which are not used in practice, these results reflect
TSH levels before and after Fuku. TSH is implicated in many diseases,
not just hypothyroidism. It affects the entire
hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid axis. For one thing, increased TSH
levels cause the newborn to absorb more iodine-131 than average TSH
newborns would.

This is also important because it involves the effect of all species
of radioisotopes, I-131, Cs-137, Pu-239, etc. etc. We don’t know if
only I-131 affects newborns, in fact Dr. Bandazhevsky has shown that
Cs-137 affects thyroids too.

The data have been split up into three seasons:
1. January 1 – March 16
2. March 17 – June 30
3. July 1 – December 31

It involves virtually the entire population of California newborns for the years 2009-2012.
AFTERFUK is an indicator variable, which equals 1 if the birth was
after Fukushima, and 0 otherwise. “IF 4.5 < TSH THEN AFTERFUK = 1"
means than if TSH is greater than 4.5 (actually 4.99 in the original
data), then the newborn is classified as being born after Fukushima.
ODA uses maximum-accuracy classification - no model of this form
achieves higher classification accuracy. No distributional assumptions
are involved.

All three seasons, and the combined data also, show increased TSH
levels after Fukushima, and all are statistically significant by
two-tailed UniODA at the p<.01 level.

The ESS levels vary from 3.90% to 8.02%. The effect is weak, but I
am not a thyroid doctor. Since over two million newborns are involved,
even a small effect has consequences for many newborns. I would think
that something that would affect even 100 newborns is a big huge deal.

NHK, July, 30, 2014 (emphasis
added): TEPCO initially planned to freeze radioactive wastewater
that’s been flowing into underground utility tunnels at the plant.
It hoped the measure would prevent the wastewater from mixing with
groundwater and flowing out to sea. But 3 months into the project,
the water hasn’t frozen as planned. [...] Utility tunnels between
the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors and the sea are estimated to hold a
total of 11,000 tons of radiation-contaminated wastewater.

NHK transcript,
July 23, 2014: The work isn’t going as planned [...] Water used to
cool melted fuel [...] has been reaching the soil [...] and seeping
into the sea. Workers want to freeze the water inside the tunnels
before it can leak into the ground. [...] Regulators have been
skeptical [and] suggested other options such as filling the tunnels
with concrete.

Asahi Shimbun, July 24, 2014: NRA instructed
TEPCO to pump out contaminated water in the trenches as early as
possible because water inside the underground tunnels could be
leaking into the surrounding soil. […] A large volume of
radioactive water […] has to be removed. […] Although the
operations were scheduled to be completed at the end of May [...]
TEPCO said a small stream of water in the trenches has hampered the
freezing operations. […] The delay in draining the radioactive
water from the tunnels could slow the construction of the frozen wall
[...]

NHK, July 9, 2014: At Wednesday’s meeting of the
Nuclear Regulation Authority [officials] decided to urgently assess a
range of problems [and] discussed a delay in work to freeze
wastewater in underground utility tunnels at the plant to block
further inflows of water and stop contaminated water from leaking out
to sea. Members urged that the effort be speeded up. Some expressed
doubt as to whether the plant’s operator has a sense of
crisis.

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Japanese politicians have been debating scrapping the country's
nuclear reactors since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Now,
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says the country will push for nuclear
power generation as a key energy source.

Located near Japan's northernmost point, Horonobe, Hokkaido is a
small dairy farm town. Here, researchers of the Japan Atomic Energy
Agency are studying the possibilities for the final disposal of
radioactive waste.

Workers at a facility that opened in 2003 have dug 380 meters into
the ground.
Researchers are looking into whether nuclear waste can be safely
stored.

Each unit is 1.3 meters in height and 500 kilograms in weight. And
they emit radiation at an extremely high level...enough to kill a
person within 20 seconds.

"Regardless of Japan's nuclear energy policy, highly
radioactive nuclear waste must be disposed of. We have to ensure that
such waste does not harm the human environment."Naotaka
Shigeta / JAEA Horonobe Underground Research Dept.

Natural uranium is enriched and becomes nuclear
fuel.Radioactivity reaches highest when fuel generates power in a
nuclear plant. After the fuel is removed from a nuclear reactor, it
is reprocessed and nuclear waste is left. It is kept cooling for
about 50 years until the temperature is brought down to less than 100
degrees Celsius. Then it is transported to an underground depository
site. Experts say it would take 100,000 years for the level of
radioactivity to return to that of natural uranium.

Researchers here study the movement of geological strata and
underground water. Workers have to pump up 120 tons of underground
water daily. They also assess the durability of materials around the
nuclear waste units, to ensure that radioactivity does not escape.

The 2-kilometer-by-3-kilometer underground storage facility has a
capacity of 40,000 units. The total length of its tunnels is 270
kilometers.
Researchers hope to find out what impact an earthquake would have
on the facility. They installed seismometers at the site and monitor
tremors constantly.

"Radioactive waste stored here will have been processed into
perfectly solid form, so the glass units will shake with the
facility. This means an earthquake would not destroy them."Naotaka
Shigeta / JAEA Horonobe Underground Research Dept

But members of the country's most prestigious science association
are voicing their concerns about deep repository systems.
They say it's hard for Japan to build a facility in a region
that's prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.
They recommend that Japanese leaders look for other technological
developments to safely store waste.

Japan has 1,700 glass nuclear waste units. The number would rise
to 27,000 if all spent fuel rods currently stored at nuclear plants
were processed. Japanese leaders must decide where and how to safely
store the waste.

Researchers at Horonobe plan to start an experiment using
simulated waste units later this year. They say real nuclear waste
will never be used here.
The research agency and the local government agreed that
radioactive materials will never be brought into the township.
The idea of storing nuclear waste underground is debated around
the globe. Only Finland and Sweden have chosen construction sites for
such facilities.

Crews at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are carrying out
decommissioning work that will take decades. Managers at the plant
are stepping up efforts to improve their employee's...long-term
working environment. But, they're facing many obstacles.

NHK
WORLD's Yoichiro Tateiwa went for an inside look on this edition of
Nuclear Watch.
Cleaning up Fukushima Daiichi is a big job. Workers are removing
radioactive contamination and decommissioning damaged reactors at the
same time.

The area around the crippled buildings still has high levels of
radiation.
People here work in shifts and take breaks every few
hours.
As many as 6000 workers come to the site every day. Their
schedules are designed to minimize radiation exposure.

TEPCO officials explain most of the people here are employees of
subcontracting companies. It means the utility is not directly
responsible for their safety.

But TEPCO officials have started taking measures to improve
conditions at the plant.
"We consider improving the working environment to be a top
priority."Yuichi Nagano / General Manager, TEPCO

They're constructing a resting facility for workers. The building
will have a dining space where hot meals will be sold. It will also
have devices people can use to check their internal radiation
exposure.
It's not just spaces for breaks that are getting improvements. An
example is this vehicle repair factory. Nothing like it existed here
before it was built.

That worried many workers. The vehicles here can't leave because
they may be contaminated. So if one broke down or needed repairs,
there was no way to fix it. Now, that problem has been solved.
"Ensuring worker safety is essential for safe and speedy
decommissioning."Yuichi Nagano / General Manager, TEPCO

But experts say more needs to be done to ensure the safety of
workers.
"At Fukushima Daiichi, the task of checking workers' health
is handled by the companies that hire them. But what we need is a
centralized system for checking the health of all workers. "Ryuji
Okazaki / Professor, University of Occupational and Environmental
Health, Japan
Okazaki says the Japanese government needs to establish a system
for making sure the workers are healthy.

There are other issues to consider. When workers finish a shift,
they are required to take off their protective gear. Their clothing
and equipment is treated as contaminated waste.

TEPCO is now constructing an incineration facility to deal with
it. But the manager overseeing the project says he is not sure when
it will be ready.

"All of us have to stop working right when our shifts end to
minimize radiation exposure. It's not like a normal construction
site."Shohei Komiya / Manager, TEPCO

He says under these conditions, it's hard to stay on schedule.
TEPCO has a lot riding on the safety of the plant's workers. Their
health and well being is critical to the success of the
decommissioning project.

A group of residents from a village near the crippled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant is planning to file for state arbitration
so all villagers can be entitled to equal damages regardless of
radiation levels of their areas.

The entire village of Iitate
is designated for evacuation, but it is categorized into three
different zones, each with a different radiation level and differing
amounts of compensation.

The residents from the two zones with
relatively low contamination say that the difference in compensation
is dividing residents.

They plan to ask the Center for
Settlement of Fukushima Nuclear Damage Claims to urge the plant
operator Tokyo Electric Power Company to pay them equal damages.

The
residents also plan to seek the payment of consolation money worth
about 30-thousand dollars per person. They say they were exposed to
more radiation because the evacuation order wasn't issued until more
than one month after the meltdown.

About 2,500 people, or 40
percent of all Iitate residents, are expected to join the group. The
group hopes to invite more people to take part and file for
arbitration in autumn.

The leader of the group, Kenichi
Hasegawa, says he hopes residents will unite to express their
anger.

Atomic power’s share of the global
electricity supply is at the lowest level since the 1980s following
the shutdown of Japan’s reactors after the Fukushima disaster, and
may fall further without major new plant construction.

The
forecast is one of the main conclusions of the World Nuclear Industry
Status Report 2014, a draft copy of which was passed to Reuters
before general release later Tuesday.

The report paints a
bleak picture of the industry more than three years after the March
11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdowns of three
reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima No. 1 power
plant.

Rising costs, construction delays, public opposition
and aging fleets of reactors will make it difficult for nuclear to
reverse the decline in its share of global energy supply, even after
two reactors in Japan won provisional approval to restart earlier
this month.

Discounting the bulk of Japan’s 48 reactors due
to their long-term outage, the report said the number of operating
units in the world has fallen to 388, 50 less than the peak in
2002.

Nuclear’s share of global power generation has fallen
to 10.8 percent, down from a high of 17.6 percent in 1996 and the the
lowest since the 1980s, it said.

The report also pointed to
delays in construction projects, even in China, where the government
is strongly pushing for nuclear power to replace heavy carbon
emitting coal stations.

Of the 67 reactors under construction
globally as at July 2014, at least 49 were experiencing delays and
eight had been under construction for 20 years, it said.

The
average age of reactors has also increased, rising to more than 28
years, while more than 170 units, or 44 percent of the total, have
been operating for more than 30 years or more.

“More than
200 reactors may face shutdown in the coming two decades,”
Tatsujiro Suzuki, a former Vice Chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy
Commission, said in the foreword of the report.

“If new
construction pace does not match the pace of shutdown, it is clear
that the nuclear share will decline rapidly,” Suzuki
said.

Renewable energy is taking up an increasing share of the
energy mix, the report said. Installed solar capacity in China topped
operating nuclear capacity, while in Spain more power was generated
from wind in 2013 than any other source, beating nuclear for the
first time.

The report’s lead authors are industry analysts
Mycle Schneider, who is based in Paris, and London-based Antony
Froggatt. Both have advised European government bodies on energy and
nuclear policy issues.

In Japan, where the pro-nuclear ruling
Liberal Democratic Party faces strong public opposition to restarts,
the nuclear industry won some relief when the Cabinet reversed the
previous government policy of a gradual abolition of atomic
power.

But it also endorsed a push for more renewables and set
no targets for nuclear energy.Photo :Construction continues
on a new nuclear reactor at the Plant Vogtle power plant in
Waynesboro, Georgia, on June 13. Atomic power's share of the global
electricity supply is at the lowest level since the 1980s following
the shutdown of Japan's reactors after the Fukushima disaster, and
may fall further without major new plant construction, a new report
says. |
AP

"Shioya Mayor Kasuhisa Mikata, right, expresses his
disappointment to Deputy Environment Minister Shinji Inoue over the
Ministry of the Environment's informal selection of his town as a
place to construct a final disposal site for radioactive waste, at
Shioya town hall on July 30, 2014. (Mainichi)Shioya Mayor
Kasuhisa Mikata, right, expresses his disappointment to Deputy
Environment Minister Shinji Inoue over the Ministry of the
Environment's informal selection of his town as a place to construct
a final disposal site for radioactive waste, at Shioya town hall on
July 30, 2014. (Mainichi)拡大写真

The
Ministry of the Environment is preparing to use state-owned land in
the Tochigi Prefecture town of Shioya to permanently store
radioactive waste from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it has been
learned.

The ministry has been searching for a location to
construct a facility to store "designated waste" including
radioactive materials from the disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s
Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. On July 30, Deputy Environment
Minister Shinji Inoue visited the Shioya town office and asked Mayor
Kazuhisa Mikata to agree to a detailed inspection of the
area.

Following the meeting, Mikata stated that he was
"opposed to construction" of such a facility but indicated
that he would engage in discussions with the ministry.

The
ministry is eyeing three hectares of state-owned land in Shioya to
construct the storage site, officials say. In a meeting with mayors
in Tochigi Prefecture it was earlier agreed that prospective sites
would be evaluated on four factors -- their distance from
communities, their distance from water resources, the level of
vegetation and nature in the area, and the amount of designated waste
to be stored. Officials agreed to convert these figures into
numerical data to make judgments.

During the meeting on July
30, which was also attended by Tochigi Gov. Tomikazu Fukuda, Inoue
explained to Mikata that Shioya had achieved the highest ranking in
the evaluation. Mikata responded that the ministry's move was
"disappointing." He added that the source of one of Japan's
designated 100 remarkable water areas lay nearby.

In a news
conference after the meeting, Mikata told reporters, "I conveyed
my clear opposition. But I think we should lend an ear with regard
the implementation of a detailed survey. I would like to consider the
issue after discussions with the Ministry of the Environment."

The
designated waste includes straw and incinerated ash with a level of
radioactivity of 8,000 becquerels or more per kilogram. In 2012, the
ministry named the Tochigi Prefecture city of Yaita as a prospective
location to build a permanent storage site, but it did not provide
explanations to the town in advance, which resulted in local
opposition, sending the ministry's plans back to the drawing board.
Later, local officials agreed to settle on a single location in which
a detailed survey would be conducted. The ministry had acted swiftly
to make a selection. A total of roughly 14,000 tons of designated
waste remains in Tochigi Prefecture.

SAITAMA -- The prefectural government here was unaware of about
2,400 people taking shelter in the region after evacuating from
Fukushima Prefecture following the nuclear crisis, it has been
learned.
The Saitama Prefectural Government found out about the omission
after asking all municipalities in the prefecture earlier in July
about the number of evacuees they host from the nuclear disaster. The
prefectural government had previously tallied the number of only
those who lived in temporary housing units it and some municipalities
under its jurisdiction provides free of charge. It regularly asked
only some of the local bodies about the number of evacuees.

The Reconstruction Agency tasked with efforts to help areas hit by
the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and the ensuing
nuclear crisis recover from the disasters said it will urge other
prefectural governments to release all available figures.

The prefectural government's fire and disaster management division
asked all the 63 municipalities in the prefecture on July 8 about the
number of evacuees they host. After tallying the figures, the
prefectural government revised upward the number of evacuees from
2,640 as of June to 5,044.

Of them, the prefectural government reported 2,992 evacuees,
including those who it newly confirmed were living in public housing,
to the Reconstruction Agency as a provisional figure.
About 2,400 evacuees who have been newly confirmed are mostly
those who have voluntarily evacuated to the prefecture following the
outbreak of the nuclear disaster. The figure is expected to further
increase, and many unconfirmed evacuees may not receive
administrative information such as on healthcare and education and
measures to support evacuees.

The prefectural government had previously tallied only evacuees
living at temporary housing units it and more than 20 municipalities
under its jurisdiction provides for evacuees. It sent an email with a
list of the number of evacuees attached to these local bodies and
asked the municipalities to report any change in their figures.

This is attributable to the fact that the national government has
failed to define evacuees from the nuclear disaster or show any
specific method of tallying evacuees.

Yohei Shibusawa, head of the division, told the Mainichi, "We
stuck to hard figures (of those living at public temporary housing
units)."

A citizens organization supporting evacuees taking shelter in
Saitama Prefecture conducted a survey on all 63 municipalities in the
prefecture in 2013 and 2014 and found that 1.7 times to two times
more evacuees were living in the prefecture than prefectural
authorities had announced. The group then pointed out that the
prefectural government had failed to grasp the number of evacuees it
hosts.

The Reconstruction Agency has announced the number of evacuees
across the country every month based on figures provided by
prefectural governments. As of July 10, the agency put the number at
247,233 throughout the nation.

Ucluelet West Coast Fishermen ' Fukushima debris waist high'

Fisherman 1: We saw some dolphins… lots of
sea lions… and lots of junk from Japan. Question: I was wondering
about Fukushima, and all the stuff… You’re seeing that debris?

Fisherman 2: Oh yeah…
southwest of Langara [Island] — waist high, full of everything.
It’s incredible, piles and piles… Drift nets up there with
catastrophic death in them, it’s just horrifying… If you want to
see incredible stuff, southwest of Langara… the drift nets have
got everything in it dead… it’s bad, real bad — that all comes
across from Fukushima… The currents are big, bringing everything
in. We’ll see tide lines for 10-15 miles of just rows of shit
floating [...]

Question: Were you given
any warning by the government that it could be radioactive or
dangerous to your health?

The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has
offered to pay the Fukushima Prefectural Government ¥230 billion
over the next 30 years if the prefecture hosts temporary storage
facilities for soil tainted by radiation from the March 2011 nuclear
disaster, NHK reported Wednesday.

But Fukushima Prefecture is unhappy with the plan because the
administration is at the same time planning to terminate the current
¥12 billion-per-year subsidy when it formally decides to dismantle
the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant in line with requests from
local governments, according to NHK.

At that meeting, the amount of state subsidies to be offered to
the towns in return for the facilities was not specified.

But the government had told prefectural officials last week that
it was ready to pay nearly ¥8 billion per year over 30 years,
totaling ¥230 billion, in subsidies if the towns agreed to host the
facilities, NHK reported.

At the Monday meeting, the government also said it will allow
landowners to decide whether to sell their land or set superficies
right, because locals are strongly against selling their properties.
Communities are reluctant to sell their property because of
attachment to ancestral lands and fears that temporary facilities
would ultimately become final disposal sites for tainted soil.

The KEPCO executive admitted that the cash was handed out based on
the politicians assistance to the nuclear industry. This may explain why
so many politicians have supported nuclear power even in the face of
public opposition.

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has
begun putting ice into underground utility tunnels to help freeze
radiation-contaminated wastewater.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company began work in April to create a wall of
ice between the basement of the No. 2 reactor building and its utility
tunnel.

TEPCO initially planned to freeze radioactive wastewater that's been
flowing into underground utility tunnels at the plant. It hoped the
measure would prevent the wastewater from mixing with groundwater and
flowing out to sea.

But 3 months into the project, the water hasn't frozen as planned.

Workers began putting ice into the water on an experimental basis this
month. They say they found that 2 tons of ice reduced the water
temperature by more than 4 degrees by the next day.

On Wednesday, workers increased the daily input of ice to 15 tons.

Utility tunnels between the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors and the sea are
estimated to hold a total of 11,000 tons of radiation-contaminated
wastewater.

Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told at the body's regular meeting on Wednesday that the possibility of a nuclear accident, where workers could be exposed to radiation beyond the current legal accumulative limit of 100 millisieverts, cannot be denied. His proposal to study raising the limit was approved at the meeting.

The authority will decide on the level by referring to overseas standards. It will also confer on how to get prior consent from workers and train them for such cases. If a legal amendment is necessary, it plans to send its findings to a relevant government panel for deliberations.

When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was hit by meltdowns in 2011, many workers were exposed to radiation above the legal limit. As an extraordinary measure, the government had to raise the limit to 250 millisieverts, for 9 months, 3 days after the onset of the accident.

An official of Tokyo Occupational Safety & Health Center said the move is one step in progress. He warned, however, that workers' health risks and how to manage their health should fully be debated before deciding on the specific level.

He said the authority should carefully study the matter by conducting hearings on workers who were involved in the Fukushima disaster.

Tuesday, 29 July 2014

The French Polynesian government’s
decision to remove a monument on Tahiti dedicated to those who
suffered from repeated French nuclear testing in the South Pacific is
facing growing opposition, including from survivors of the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On June 11, the government, headed by French Polynesia President
Gaston Flosse, decided to rescind permission to use the current
location in a park that sits along the ocean in the capital, Papeete.
“It is desirable to construct new facilities to accept yachts
and boats and renovate (current) facilities for tourists,” Flosse
said.

The memorial, which was erected in 2006 after the government gave
permission to use the site free of charge, consists of rocks
collected from areas impacted by the testing as well as wooden
markers.
France conducted nuclear tests on the remote islands in the
archipelago for 30 years starting in the mid-1960s.

The park where the memorial stands was renamed the “Place de 2
Juillet 1966” (July 2, 1966, plaza), to mark the date of France’s
first nuclear test in the South Pacific.

The government’s decision to remove the memorial caused a global
stir among those opposed to nuclear weapons including Noriko
Sakashita, 71, who suffered as a result of the atomic bombing in
Hiroshima, but who now resides in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture. She
visited the memorial immediately before the June 11 decision.
“I can’t believe that the place where I offered flowers just
the other day is going to be abolished,” she said.

A local group affected by the French nuclear tests started a
petition to oppose the removal in cooperation with citizens' groups
from other countries.

Toshiki Mashimo, a part-time lecturer at Saitama University, who
is taking part in the campaign, wrote an open letter addressed to
Flosse calling for the eternal preservation of the memorial. His
request was handed over to an official of the local government in
French Polynesia on June 30 by a member of the United Church of
Christ in Japan.
“A ceremony to mourn for the people who have suffered nuclear
damage throughout the world is held in front of the memorial every
year. It is a sacred place. Japan is a country which suffered atomic
bombings. In addition, many Japanese people visit Tahiti for
sightseeing. It is meaningful to express opposition from such a
country (Japan),” Mashimo said.

On July 2, Flosse proposed an alternative site for the memorial to
a local group, saying, “There will be no problems if the memorial
is relocated to a different place.” However, many people oppose the
idea and support keeping it at its current location.

"Under the law,
designations of state secrets will be in force for five years. But
they can be renewed every five years until the information has been
kept secret for 30 years, after which the declassified documents
would be moved to the National Archives. Declassified documents that
have been treated as state secrets for less than 30 years can also be
moved to the archives if they are deemed to be of historical
importance. But if not, the documents can be destroyed with the
approval of the prime minister. This means that a large volume of
state secrets could pass into eternal oblivion without ever being
exposed to public scrutiny — which should not be allowed in a
democracy. The panel’s draft just allows that to happen."

JUL 28, 2014"A
panel of private-sector experts has worked out a draft enforcement
standard for the state secrets law, including creation of two
oversight bodies and government sections that would accept
whistle-blowers’ reports. Unfortunately, the setup falls far short
of preventing arbitrary designation of government information as
state secrets, which endangers the people’s right to know.

Because
the proposed bodies will be staffed by bureaucrats, it will not be
able to provide independent oversight against improper designation of
state secrets, and no specific protection is provided for officials
who reveal wrongdoings. As the Abe administration plans to put the
law into force by yearend, the danger of limitless expansion of state
secrets has not been eliminated.

According to the draft
standard, which the Cabinet plans to formally adopt after soliciting
public comments for a month through late August, one of the oversight
bodies will be created within the Cabinet Office and headed by a
bureaucrat of the rank of deputy chief of a ministry bureau.
Government ministries and agencies will annually report to the body
the list of the information designated as state secrets over the past
year, and summaries of the designated secrets when necessary — but
not the content of the secrets themselves.

The chief of this
oversight body can seek explanations from the ministries and agencies
concerned or corrective steps when it is found that specific pieces
of information has been improperly classified, but will lack the
power to enforce his requests. The chief may find it psychologically
difficult to ask Cabinet ministers — who are higher ranking and
have the legal power to designate state secrets — to submit
explanations or rethink their decisions. The requests can also be
turned down on grounds of national security.

The other
oversight body will be set up within the Cabinet secretariat and be
composed of administrative vice ministers or officials of the same
rank. Like the oversight body within the Cabinet Office, it will have
no legal power to enforce its requests, including calls for
rectifying secret designations. Its function as an oversight body
will be in doubt because its members represent the very 19 ministries
and agencies that, under the enforcement standard, will designate
state secrets.

Under the enforcement standard, a section will
be created at each of the ministries and agencies, including the
Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry, to accept reports from
officials alerting to improper designation of government secrets.
However, the standard does not provide for any protection for the
whistle-blowers against unfair treatment.

The panel that
worked out the draft seems to assume that when there is an act of
whistle-blowing, a ministry or agency will be altruistic enough to
correct its decision or behavior. The new section might even serve as
mechanism to monitor the behavior of workers at ministries or
agencies.

But the biggest problem with the panel’s draft is
the idea of letting the ministries and agencies that designate state
secrets judge for themselves whether their designation is
reasonable.

The panel listed 55 categories of government
information that the 19 ministries and agencies can designate as
state secrets ostensibly to ensure transparency. But the list covers
an exhaustive range of activities in the areas of defense, diplomacy,
counterintelligence and anti-terrorism efforts. Information about the
mobilization of Self-Defense Forces units in defense and other
missions are among the categories. The government would be able to
conceal information on Japan’s negotiations with other countries
over security matters if it chooses to do so. Information on nuclear
power plants that the government wants to keep hidden from the public
could also be designated as secret under the guise of “anti-terrorism
efforts.”

Despite the panel’s nominal efforts to bring
transparency to the implementation of the state secrets law, it will
be difficult to effectively control bureaucracy in the designation of
state secrets because the law itself gives the Cabinet ministers
concerned discretionary powers to classify an extremely wide range of
government information. The law allows the defense minister to
designate almost all information related to defense and the SDF,
including plans, estimates and studies related to the forces’
operations. The foreign minister would be able to designate as
secrets, for example, the scope of cooperation with foreign
governments or international organization in the field of
security.

Under the law, designations of state secrets will be
in force for five years. But they can be renewed every five years
until the information has been kept secret for 30 years, after which
the declassified documents would be moved to the National Archives.
Declassified documents that have been treated as state secrets for
less than 30 years can also be moved to the archives if they are
deemed to be of historical importance. But if not, the documents can
be destroyed with the approval of the prime minister. This means that
a large volume of state secrets could pass into eternal oblivion
without ever being exposed to public scrutiny — which should not be
allowed in a democracy. The panel’s draft just allows that to
happen.

Clearly the panel of private-sector experts’ draft
enforcement standard does nothing to alleviate grave concerns about
the state secrets law, which pose a serious threat to the nation’s
democracy. This reinforces the case for the Diet abolishing the state
secrets law. Citizens should continue grass-roots movements to
pressure lawmakers to act."

Tokyo Electric Power Co. admitted Monday that the
so-called groundwater bypass operation at its crippled Fukushima No.
1 nuclear power plant is not working.

In May, the utility
began the operation to pump untainted groundwater into the sea to
prevent it from flowing into and accumulating in reactor
buildings.

The operation is intended to reduce the tons of
radiation-tainted water being generated by the plant each day. The
melted reactor fuel at the plant, which was heavily damaged by three
core meltdowns after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, must be
perpetually cooled by water that then leaks into the basements and
taints incoming groundwater from the hills behind the plant.

Tepco
official Teruaki Kobayashi told a news conference Monday that the
utility has yet to see tangible results from the operation in the
reactor buildings.

According to Tepco, 400 tons of groundwater
flow on average into reactor buildings and other areas at the plant
per day, causing the buildup of contaminated water. The company has
said the operation could lower that amount by up to 100 tons per
day.

Two months after the start of the operation, however,
there is still no sign that the buildup of contaminated water has
been halted. Even so, Kobayashi noted that water levels had dropped
by up to 10 centimeters at the point halfway between the reactor
buildings and the wells used to pump out groundwater.

Rainfall
at the plant site has been hampering the operation, Tepco said,
adding that it plans to solidify the soil with asphalt near the hills
where the groundwater flows from, according to NHK.

For the
water inflow to decline by 100 tons per day, levels at the halfway
point need to fall by several dozen centimeters, to 1
meter.

Kobayashi declined to specify when groundwater levels
could begin to fall.

A total of 15,828 tons of groundwater was
released into the sea between May 21 and July 20.

Monday, 28 July 2014

I am appealing to all of you, students, activists, bloggers, podcasters, journalists, lawyers, doctors, stand up to help denounce and expose those pro-nuclear agents' illegal permanent harassment of Mari Takenouchi.

A Fukushima evacuee, single mother, Mari Takenouchi became an full-time independent journalist after 311, a beacon in the night calling attention to the plight of the Fukushima children, of the Fukushima evacuees and non-evacuees, calling for the protection and evacuation of the Fukushima Children.

She needs OUR HELP. She is now under observation by some nuclear officesand agents, virtual and in real life. Those pro-nuclear agents are constantly harassing her, pressuring her, intimidating her, in their will to silence her.

We can make them stop, if we all denounce those illegal acts, on our blogs, podcasts, websites articles, bringing maximum exposure to their harassment, those pro-nukers will realize that their actions are counter-productive, that more they pressure her to silence her, more they will be bring attention to her cause worldwide and more international support for Mari Takenouchi, then they will have to reconsider and stop.

Due to the present Japanese Government politics and their recent State Secrecy Law, somehow most the Japanese people are presently scared to support her, to become involved and implicated.
It belong to us, the foreign No Nukes activists to bring her our full and loud support, that is the least we can do for a lady who has been courageously opposing and denouncing the activities of Nuclear lobby Ethos Project in Fukushima.

Mari needs our help, let's not abandon this lady to fight those crooks alone.
Thank you in advance for you future given support to Mari.

“ETHOS and CORE, who must take their share of the
responsibility. (Translator’s note: CEPN is the Centre d’étude sur
l’Evaluation de la Protection dans le domaine Nucléaire ; Mutadis, ETHOS
and CORE are all offshoots of the French nuclear industry, financed
either through Electricité de France or the Autorité de Sureté
Nucléaire.)The same fate awaits the Japanese people and their children
living in areas contaminated by the Fukushima disaster because the same
strategy is being put in place in Japan with the same players, the same
pseudo-scientific justifications and under the aegis of the same
authorities.”: http://independentwho.org/en/2014/02/05/chernobyl-model-fukushima/

A former top official at Kansai Electric
Power Co. has come forward to reveal a nearly 20-year history of
doling out "top secret" huge donations to Japanese prime
ministers, funded on the backs of ratepayers.

Chimori Naito, 91, a former KEPCO vice president, said that for 18
years from 1972, seven prime ministers received 20 million yen (about
$200,000 now) annually from Yoshishige Ashihara, who served as both
KEPCO president and chairman.

At that time, political donations to individual lawmakers were not
illegal. However, in 1974, electric power companies declared a ban on
corporate donations to politicians because of strong public
opposition to the use of electricity fees to pay for such
contributions.

Naito said that "ban" was only a superficial stance
taken by the electric power companies.
"There is no way those companies could (ban such donations),"
he said. "Nothing would have happened if we angered
politicians."

Naito had long taken pride in working closely with Ashihara in
making the donations as part of efforts to promote nuclear energy and
to further develop the electric power industry.
However, the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 and the inept
handling of that disaster by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant
operator, politicians and bureaucrats led Naito to have a change of
heart.
"As I began to think about my own death, I also recalled the
course I had taken in life," Naito said. "A reporter (from
The Asahi Shimbun) came just at the time when I began feeling that I
wanted to talk about matters I had never spoken about until now. I
thought it would serve as a lesson for future generations."

According to Naito, the prime ministers who were given the money
were Kakuei Tanaka, Takeo Miki, Takeo Fukuda, Masayoshi Ohira, Zenko
Suzuki, Yasuhiro Nakasone and Noboru Takeshita. Only Nakasone is
still alive.
Naito called aides to the prime ministers to arrange meetings
twice a year during the traditional Bon period in summer and at the
year-end season. Naito accompanied Ashihara to those meetings where
the money was directly handed over.

Naito also revealed that other important politicians, including
the chief Cabinet secretary and executives of the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party as well as the major opposition parties, were given
donations according to how much assistance they provided the electric
power industry. In total, Kansai Electric doled out several hundreds
of millions of yen a year in such donations.

Naito graduated from Kyoto University in 1947 and entered what
would later become Kansai Electric. In 1962, he became an aide to
Ashihara, who at that time was company president. Ashihara would
serve as president until 1970 when he became chairman, a post he held
until 1983, the same year Naito became a vice president at Kansai
Electric. He left the company in 1987. Ashihara died in 2003 at 102.

Distributing political donations to influential politicians was
imperative for Kansai Electric, which depended on nuclear power
plants for about half of its total electricity supply before the
Fukushima nuclear accident.

Naito agreed to be interviewed by The Asahi Shimbun, and he spoke
with reporters for a total of 69 hours over 23 sessions from December
2013 until July 2014.
He said the government's handling of the accident at the Fukushima
No. 1 nuclear power plant was unforgivable.
"There was a problem in the relationship created over many
years among those in the political, bureaucratic and electric power
sectors," he said.

Naito said the money Ashihara distributed to prime ministers and
other influential politicians was a "top secret" matter.
Naito said the two major reasons for making the donations was to
contribute to the stability of the electric power industry and to
promote national prosperity.
"The money was given for the betterment of the nation, and
there was no specific objective," he said. "That was simply
one way for electric power companies to act toward public authority
that had control over approval of business matters. We hoped it would
work like Chinese herbal medicine and take effect after prolonged
use."

An official with Kansai Electric said the company was not aware of
such donations.
Officials at Nakasone's office said aides from the time of the
donations had long since died so there was no way of confirming their
receipt. Nakasone also did not acknowledge receiving such donations
even after repeated questions from The Asahi Shimbun.
Those who knew the other prime ministers named by Naito said they
were unaware of such donations.

Takashi Mikuriya, a visiting political science professor at the
University of Tokyo who has long conducted oral histories of
politicians, praised Naito for coming forward to leave behind
testimony as a history of the nation.
"Naito likely felt that the electric power industry had never
done anything wrong, but the nuclear accident made him realize that
was nothing but misplaced confidence," Mikuriya said. "The
accident by TEPCO, which for Kansai Electric was the model to strive
for and to overcome, likely led to a drastic change in his sense of
values that had previously believed his behind-the-scenes work was
for the good of the nation."

Sunday, 27 July 2014

Monitoring wells showed only about a 10 centimeter drop over the last two months. Regulators asked TEPCO to gather more data.

The current bypass system is quite small, removing only 100 tons of
the daily 400 tons of incoming groundwater. This system is also near the
reactors being located directly uphill near the buildings.

Our research
team and others suggested to IRID that a much larger bypass system
would be needed and it should be installed further inland of the plant
to encircle the facility. This plan was approved by IRID but never
actually implemented by METI or TEPCO.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority has effectively given the safety
clearance for restarting Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s idled Sendai
Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture — the first under power
plant safety standards updated a year ago.

Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe has reiterated that his administration will move to reactivate
nuclear reactors that have passed NRA screening, and the power industry
hopes that the decision will pave the way for getting back online many
other nuclear power plants across Japan that were halted in the wake of
the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

However, the NRA’s nod covers
only some technical aspects of nuclear power generation safety in this
natural disaster-prone country. Blind faith in what the Abe
administration has billed the world’s top-level plant safety standards
could lead to a revival of the “safety myth” of nuclear power that was
prevalent before the March 2011 triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power
Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant.

Before restarting any idled plant,
the government and the power industry need to stop and consider if they
have, in fact, learned the crucial lessons of the Fukushima crisis.

The Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at Kyushu Electric’s Sendai plant in the city
of Satsumasendai have been fast-tracked for NRA screening among the 19
reactors at 12 power plants across Japan that regional power companies
have applied to restart.

The NRA will finalize its report on the
Sendai plant after soliciting public comments for a month. It could be
reactivated sometime after the fall, pending additional procedures and
the consent of local governments hosting the plant.

Under the
updated safety standards, power companies are obliged to take
countermeasures against possible severe accidents such as reactor core
meltdowns as well as terrorist attacks. They are required to ensure that
their plants can withstand the strongest quakes and highest tsunami
estimated for their locations, and make necessary reinforcements.

The new standards were introduced in light of the lessons learned from
the Fukushima plant meltdowns caused by the massive earthquake and
tsunami. The standards have been hailed repeatedly by the Abe
administration as among the world’s toughest for nuclear power plants.

Still, NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said the watchdog’s assessment does
not guarantee safety at the Sendai plan; it shows only that the plant
matches the updated standards. “The plant’s safety has improved to a
certain extent, but this is not the goal,” Tanaka said, adding that
Kyushu Electric needs to make further efforts to guard the plant against
possible natural disasters whose severity can be exceptionally high in
Japan. Questions linger about the validity of the new safety standards,
which have been created even before the causes of the Fukushima
meltdowns are fully identified.

Achieving absolute safety in
nuclear power plants may be pie in the sky. But one of the lessons of
Fukushima was that a catastrophic accident can take place because of a
series of unforeseen events. What’s needed are efforts to minimize the
risk of severe accidents through multiple layers of safeguards at the
plants, and to ensure the safety of residents in areas that could be hit
by radiation fallout in such disasters.

It won’t be until fiscal
2015 and 2016 at the earliest, respectively, that the Sendai plant will
have an “important anti-seismic building” and a filter to remove
radioactive substances from steam released in an accident.

Since
the Fukushima disaster, municipalities around nuclear power plants
across the country have been called on to prepare evacuation plans for
residents within 30 km of the plants. However, nearly 40 percent of such
municipalities have reportedly not come up with a plan, even as the
power companies seek to restart the idled plants.

Creation of the
evacuation plans have been left in the hands of local governments, with
no NRA or central government oversight to help ensure that the plans
are adequate.

Municipalities around Kyushu Electric’s Sendai
plant have already drawn up evacuation plans. However, local residents
and experts charge that the plans are ineffective because they are often
based on implausible scenarios. Last month, more than half the
residents of Ichikikushikino, which borders the Sendai plant host city
of Satsumasendai, signed a petition opposing restart of the plant,
citing the lack of an adequate plan to safely evacuate local residents.

The Kagoshima Prefectural Government in May released an estimate that
it would take roughly 29 hours, at most, for 90 percent of some 210,000
residents within 30 km of the Sendai plant to evacuate the area. But
doubts were cast on the plausibility of the estimate, especially because
it did not take into account the extra time that would be required for
evacuating people in need of special care such as hospital inpatients
and residents of welfare facilities.
Many such people died during
the evacuation of areas around the Fukushima plant in 2011.

Kagoshima
Gov. Yuichiro Ito says the prefecture will create plans for the
evacuation of hospital patients and care facility residents within 10 km
of the Sendai plant, but that it would be difficult to prepare a
realistic plan to evacuate all such people within the 30-km zone, given
the much larger number of institutions and patients.

The Sendai
plant is widely considered one of the most vulnerable to volcanic
eruptions because of the concentration of calderas in the area. The NRA
report said it judged as “appropriate” the assessment by Kyushu Electric
— though questioned by many volcanologists — that the risk of a massive
eruption that could affect the plant during its life span is “small
enough.” The NRA says the power company will monitor crustal movements
in the calderas for possible signs of an eruption, and take steps to
halt the reactors and move out nuclear fuels — a process that would take
years — when such signs emerge. NRA Chairman Tanaka admits that its
screening was carried out in the absence of sufficient scientific
knowledge on the subject of forecasting volcanic eruptions.

The
power industry has its reasons to seek a quick restart of idled nuclear
power plants. Since the Fukushima disaster put the nation’s nuclear
power plants offline, utility firms have suffered huge losses due to the
increased costs of imported fuel to run thermal power plants — costs
that have also been passed on to consumers. For Kyushu Electric, which
relied on nuclear energy to generate 40 percent of its power before
2011, a restart of the Sendai plant’s Nos. 1 and 2 reactors alone would
save it ¥20 billion in fuel costs each month.

The NRA decision
comes as a relief for Kyushu Electric and other power companies that
hope more reactors will quickly get the go-ahead to restart. However,
they and the Abe administration need to reconsider whether adequate
steps have been taken to avoid a repeat of the mistakes that led to the
Fukushima disaster — and to ensure that shortcuts to safety are not
being taken in the drive to restart the idled plants.